Final theory, unification and reductionism: views of the Brazilian community of physics

The first part of the paper introduces a brief discussion centered on the ideas of Steven Weinberg, who defends reductionist unification and believes that the physics of particles and fields had already moved a large part of the way towards a final theory, and of Philip Anderson, a critic of reductionist positions, who brought the emergentist view to physics. In the second part, results of a survey on how ideas such as "unification", "reductionism" and "final theory" are received by members of the Brazilian community of physicist are presented. The results show a tendency of rejection of the possibility of a final theory and, to a lesser degree, of reductionism, the idea of unification being more acceptable.